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Let the Robots Do the Dirty Work, Say UK Workers

The UK has seen a 31% increase in industrial robot installations from 2016-2017. Alongside this increase is the preference by employees as to the work that robots should be doing.

Asked about the workplace of the future, UK employees want robots to take over the unhealthy (83%), hazardous (77%) or monotonous (72%) jobs. These are the findings of the automatica trend index which was based on interviews with 1,000 employees

The majority of workers in the UK not only want robots to take over the dirty, dull and dangerous work: About 70% think that robots give people the chance to learn more qualified work and create more opportunities for education and training.

Asked about the level of maturity, 40% of working people report, that training for the digital world has already been successfully established by their employer. But only 6% think such initiatives have reached a level of excellence.

At the same time, people welcome the idea to join forces at the workplace of the future by working in human-robot teams. 68% think that working hand in hand with robots without safety fences will improve manufacturing. The reason for that: Human talents such as judgment and fine motor skills will be combined with those of robots e.g. force and precision.

This human-machine collaboration will make UK companies more competitive say 70% of the respondents. And 52% say that digitization and robotics will bring back jobs that were previously located abroad.

The latest data of the International Federation of Robotics show, that robot density in the United Kingdom matches the global average of 85 industrial robots per 10,000 employees installed in the manufacturing industry. This ranks the country 15th in Europe and 22nd in the world.